Truly it has been said that the language of heaven is pictures and as we know the original Hebrew script consisted of pictographs before the Babylonian Jewish scholars created today's phonetic script.

Most of my life, and more so since I was born again in 1977, Yahweh has communicated to me in visions. Sometimes they have been tantalisingly difficult to understand and without exception it has been impossible to do so without a knowledge of biblical symbols (since the Scriptures contain not only Yahweh's revelation to us but also the way in which he communicates to us) and the horizon-expanding Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit) to make sense of Yahweh's will. His revelations are so constructed as to be applicable in multiple situations and on different planes of existence.

True, my awareness has become somewhat heightened by the critical sitation we find ourselves in today and that is another clue: Yahweh is not understood by the mind alone but by the lev or heart also. In His world they are indistinguishable because they are an echad or oneness. It is only rationalistic man who has tried to surgically separate them and in the process sterilised the emet (truth) and so make it inaccessible to the lev (heart).

THE VISIONS

The visions of this morning have teased my soul all day today and made me wait until quite late to share their meaning. There were two. In the first I was shown a large circular stone slab on which there were ancient inscriptions, but they were too far away for me to read. If the slab was connected to anything, I could not see it, for all that was visible was the slab. I drew close to it and as I did I experienced something unseen that startled me, making with draw back in fright Then the vision closed. Presently another opened up and I saw two rectangular metalic plates whose polished surfaces were like mirrors. Their colour was, as near as I can remember, like a very dark copper, though they were not actually copper but a very hard and durable metal. The two plates were fastened together through a hole in the upper left hand corner so that one lay upon the other like two leaves of a book. And then that vision closed too.

I understood the second one relatively quickly - the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit) bore witness that these two metal plates were in some way parallel to the two stone slabs on which Moses had been given the 10 Commandments. They are like a polished surface that reveal the condition of a man's mind and lev (heart) as he looks at them, convicting him, or acquitting him, of sin. There were two metal plates in my vision and there were two stone slabs at Sinai, each with five commandments, five being the number of grace (as we discussed yesterday). There are 5 God-ward commandments as there are 5 man-ward ones. The soul is not in perfect order until it has learned to accept and then walk in all 10.

The stone slab kept me guessing until evening, which is why today's devotional is so late. I originally tried to link it to some archaeological relic like an Egyptian hypocephalus, forgetting that these were invariably made of parchment and not stone. And then it struck me - this was the circular stone that covered such a tomb entrance as Yah'shua's (Jesus'), one that could be rolled in place, massive though it was.

First, the soul must die to self-will (a shocking thing to experience, which is why I drew back in alarm) and be entombed while it awaits regeneration and release - an inner resurrection. It must come to the cross and surrender in death - the flesh or carnal nature, with its contrary passions, must be crucified.

How does it do this? By allowing Yahweh to throw a mirror up to the soul through the mitzvot (commandments) - all of them, for the soul cannot - will not - die to self until all the self has been exposed...and it takes all the mitzvot (commandments) to do that, as summarised in the 10 Commandments.

The theory sounds lovely, doesn't it? Hear some true principles, go to the biblical supermarket and purchase the commandment goods - take a look, get a shock, and somehow 'walk away' from the flesh. Of course it doesn't work like that. If it did we wouldn't be down here in this very 'challenging' world indeed.

Now to brass tacks and some uncomfortable reality. First the way we would like it to be. Reinhold Niebuhr said:

"We want a God without wrath who took man without sin into a kingdom without justice through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross" (The Kingdom of God in America).

That is what we deep down in the flesh want - it's the counterfeit Christian Godpel of the Flesh to be sure, and it's everywhere today. It's Satan's Funfair version. Now to the reality of how the flesh is put to death - you probably won't like this - that is, your flesh won't - but it's the truth:

"Contrary to what might be expected, I look back on experiences that at the time seemed especially desolating and painful. I now look back on them with particular satisfaction. Indeed, I can say with complete truthfulness that everything I have learned in my seventy-five years in this world that has truly enhanced and enlightened my existence has been through affliction and not through happiness whether pursued or attained. In other words, I say this, if it were possible to eliminate affliction from our earthly existence by means of some drug or other medical mumbo-jumbo, the result would not be to make life delectable, but to make it too banal and trivial to be endurable. This, of course, is what the cross signifies and it is the cross, more than anything else, that has called me inexorably to Christ" (Malcom Muggeridge, in The Meaning of Life, David Friend & editors of Life magazine, p.194).

The order and discipline to be Torah-compliant will inevitably take us to grace as we realise we can't do it in our own strength, and from grace to the cross, and then back to ourselves again full circle. It's a continuous circular tomb-stone that takes us, sin by sin, to our death and resurrection by trusting in and adhering to our Redeemer, Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ). Dying is painful, it's not done in a day but in a life and is therefore a part of the natural rhythm of Christianity. Death and life are intertwined until the sting of death is forever conquered out of us through the One who conquered it at Calvary:

"And when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall come to be the word that has been written, 'Death is swallowed up in overcoming (victory)'. 'O death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your overcoming (victory)?' But thanks to Elohim (God) who gives us the overcoming (victory) through our Master Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ)" (1 Cor.15:54-67, ISRV).